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Sunday, 12 January 2014

My ten most formative Christian Books

Every Christian has his or her own favourite books. Here are
ten of the books that I read as a young Christian medical student and junior
doctor that were most formative for me and really set me on my way. All have
been republished many times over and most are still in print. All but one are well known and recognised as classics.

Some of those by authors still living have been revised and
updated since I read them. In each case I have tried to find the original covers I knew them by but have linked to the latest editions on Amazon.

Of the authors I have personally met only Ron Sider, in Cape Town in
2010 at the Lausanne Conference. I told him I had read his book as a medical
student and that it had completely changed my life and I thanked him for his
service to the church.

It’s said that to see anything with clarity we need to stand
on the shoulders of giants. I
continually thank God for these Christian giants through whose labours I have
been helped to see things a little more clearly.

My father encouraged me all through my early teenage years
to read CS Lewis, but it wasn’t until I became a medical student that I
eventually did and wondered why I had not listened to him earlier. Mere
Christianity was the first and became my favourite book to give non-Christians.
I read about 20 CS Lewis books during my fourth year at medical school. My overall
favourite was the Pilgrim’s Regress.

John Stott’s ‘Basic Christianity’, ‘Contemporary Christian’
and ‘Cross of Christ’ are perhaps better known and I benefited from all of them
but this was the one that most helped me apply a biblical mind to ethical
issues and laid the framework for my understanding of social justice. So much
of what I do today is based on the lessons it taught me.

Our Christian Union at Auckland Medical School gave every
member a copy of this back in the late 1970s. We had to read one chapter a week
and then met in small groups to discuss it. No book helped me more to explode
my inadequate concepts of God and to know him personally through the
Scriptures.

As a Christian medical student trying to witness to my
friends whilst at the same time trying to deal with my own doubts this book was
a life saver. Just brilliant on the person of Christ, historicity of the Bible,
evidence for the Scriptures and full of great arguments, quotes and
illustrations which I still use today.

This German pastor was hanged by the Nazis during the Second
World War. This book of short pithy chapters is essentially an exposition of
the Sermon on the Mount and turned my early complacent Christian faith upside
down. The first sentence, ‘Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of the church’ sums
up the message and led me to take Jesus’ teaching seriously, not just as
something to be believed but to be obeyed.

Schaeffer has written many brilliant books which were
invaluable to me in finding a solid intellectual basis for my faith. The Trilogy ('The God who is there', 'Escape from Reason', 'He is there and He is not silent') and ‘How then shall we live?’ were particularly helpful to me but it
was this one that really opened my eyes up about abortion and euthanasia and
deeply challenged me to think radically
and biblically about these issues.

This little book was just what I needed when failing to
experience victory in my day to day walk with God. It deals with intransigent
inward secret sins – like resentment, unforgiveness and pride – which can so dangerously
wound our spirits and curb our effectiveness. A second book by Hession, equally
short, ‘Be filled now’ builds on its lessons. The Calvary Road brought me to
the foot of the cross and hugely deepened my appreciation of God’s love and
grace.

Written by an uneducated puritan pastor while imprisoned in
late 17th century England, this book is allegedly the most read and
translated in the world outside the Bible for good reason. There is nothing
quite like it to teach you to earth Christian experience in Scripture. The
founder of the Congregational Church John Owen sought unsuccessfully to get
Bunyan out of prison but God would not let him be released until he had
finished writing this classic.

This little book is not well known but it is a remarkable
work on simple lifestyle which unpacks the later writings of Danish philosopher
Soren Kierkegaard. It was my introduction to Kierkegaard and taught me the
valuable lesson of reading the latter backwards - starting with ‘Christian
discourses’ and ‘Ethical Discourses’ rather than ‘Either Or’ - and introducing me
to his amazing re-workings of Christ’s parables for a post-Christian audience.

If I had not read this book as medical student I am quite
sure that I would have got caught in the trap of Western materialism and never
served in Africa, never developed a passion for developing world justice and
probably never ended up in full time Christian ministry. It deeply convicted me
and total changed my attitude to material possessions and as a result, my whole
life course.

I’m
going to resist the temptation to name more and stop there. If you have not read those above
then I can assure you it will be time well spent that will impact on your
thinking, decision-making and without doubt your future Christian trajectory. There
are lots of good Christian books. But don’t miss these classics. Be blessed.

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Kiwi, Christian and Medical

This blog deals mainly with matters at the interface of Christianity and Medicine. But I do also diverge into other subjects - especially New Zealand, rugby, economics, developing world, politics and topics of general Christian and/or medical interest. The opinions expressed here are mine and may not necessarily reflect the views of my employer or anyone else associated with me.

About Me

I am CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship, a UK-based organisation with 4,500 UK doctors and 1,000 medical students as members. The opinions expressed here however are mine, and may not necessarily reflect the views of CMF or anyone else associated with me.